rights reform as essentially a technical matter. The ‘accumulation by dispos-
session’ view (see below) sees property rights as enmeshed in politics and rela-
tions of power. The case of Kenya showed that formal property rights
registration in developing countries is often prohibitively expensive and the
case of India that under certain circumstances this can be resolved. The under-
lying problem in India and Pakistan has not been the speed or cost of land
registration but the resolution of disputes through the formal legal system.
In India the practice of law over two centuries has centred on litigation. The
problem is particularly notorious and well-documented in Mumbai, where
strict rent controls originating during World War I evolved into a system
whereby rents are low and tightly controlled, tenants can only be removed on
highly restricted grounds and tenancy can be inherited. Rising urbanization
and the resulting reduced incentives to construct or maintain properties have
exacerbated shortages of residential and commercial property in the city. Legal
conflict arising from rent control is the largest source of litigation. In 2004
there were 36 Small Causes Courts in Mumbai and rent-control matters were
the exclusive jurisdiction of all but two of them. There were 38 judges in the
Bombay Civil Courts dealing exclusively with rent-control matters and only
18 judges to hear other matters. It is not unusual for conflict over property
issues to remain in court for more than 25 years (Mendelsohn, 2005). In 1999
the Maharashtra Rent Control Act was passed which added to the notion of rent
control the need to ensure a fair return for landlords and eased the terms on
which tenants could be evicted. Large commercial tenants including MNCs
were made exempt from rent control protection. The new principles were
applicable only to future tenancies, hence the impact of this reform was slow
in coming. The situation is similar in Pakistan. In May 2009 there were more
than 100,000 cases pending before the Karachi city courts and 110 judges to
try them in a city of 17 million people. Not surprisingly many people, espe-
cially in rural areas, preferred to arrange transfers and inheritance of land and
property informally. In much of rural Pakistan bordering Afghanistan, the
Taleban offer an alternative to the official legal system that is widely perceived
to be cheaper and quicker, drawing for its legitimacy on well-established
customary/community laws linked to local kinship and power relations. While
legal rulings inevitably involve relative winners and losers in Pakistan because
of the importance of communal peace and family prestige, care is taken to save
face on all sides, and to arrange compromises and compensation rather than
punishment (Lieven, 2011).
Institutional change
There is a long history of institutions transplanted from developed countries
(often during colonial rule) failing to take successful root. An example is the fail-
ure of formal private property rights or democracy to function effectively in
much of Sub-Saharan Africa after independence. These formal institutions
lacked a supportive framework of complementary institutions and organizations
Institutions 225